American Quaker War Tax Resistance Before the Revolution

Earlier this
month I reproduced some excerpts from Stephen B. Weeks’s
Southern Quakers and Slavery: A Study in Institutional
History (1896) concerning Quaker tax
resistance in the years before the American Revolution. Today I’ll add some
sections that concern such resistance during the Revolutionary
period:

Quakers in the Revolution

The Revolution begins the differentiation of the conduct and fortunes of the
Society of Friends in Virginia and North Carolina. Their experience was
different in each, and this experience seems to have had a marked influence
on future action.

Their peace policy caused American Friends to be regarded by many as hostile
to the cause of American independence. Some went to the Society to escape the
war, and some left it. Some of the younger generation broke over the peace
limit, organized themselves as “Free Quakers,” entered the American Army, and
were still maintaining their separate organization as late as
1798. In the gloomy aspect of affairs which
greeted them at the beginning of the struggle, Friends were induced to
appoint representatives from New England, Virginia and North Carolina to
attend the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1776
to consult on the condition of their affairs, and this course was followed
during the most of the war. The war brought much distress and suffering to
Friends. In this extremity the noble character of the creed of Friends stands
out in bold relief. Many thousand pounds were raised in England to be applied
to their aid. During the time of actual hostilities this was applied mostly
to Friends in New England and the Carolinas.

It does not appear that Friends during the Revolution often acted
inconsistently with their well known peace policy; but this policy was a
source of weakness to the American cause and one of strength to Great
Britain. Some Friends refused to pay the State levies for war purposes, and,
as the Continental currency was issued to carry on war, many refused to
receive it. A minute to this effect was passed by the Virginia Yearly
Meeting. We are tempted to ask how much of the religious and how much of the
economic element was present here? This action was unfortunate. The result
was to hasten the decline of the money and to throw the influence of the
Society on the side of the British Government. In
1776 North Carolina Quakers declined to vote for
delegates to attend the convention, but left Friends to take the paper bills
or not. In 1778 they were in doubt whether they
were able “to pay the taxes demanded under the present unsettled state of
affairs.” In 1780 they refused to pay the tax in
provisions. There was no general minute on part of American Friends
forbidding their members to receive the Continental currency, but the
Virginia Yearly Meeting made such an order. That they were much more bitter
and determined in the matter of the tax in Virginia is shown by a letter of
Robert Pleasants to Thomas Nicholson in 1779, in
which he argues against the payment of the tax, blames the Eastern Quarter of
North Carolina for paying, and praises the Western Quarter for refusing to
pay. This quarterly meeting also wrote to Bush River Monthly Meeting to warn
its members not to meddle in politics, for it was learned that some had voted
for delegates to the convention.

But Friends were not spared when these States were invaded. Between the
requisitions of the Americans and the thefts and robberies of the British
and Tories, there was small chance for them to escape serious damage.

As soon as the war was over Friends accepted the results. But they had never
been blindly obedient to despotism. They had steadily resisted it in England;
they did the same in America. Believing, as they do, in the common
brotherhood of man, they have been of necessity democratic, and have been
found in every question on the side which sought to elevate the lower
classes. They were, then, logically and historically, on the side of the
colonists in the question at issue. They differed from them in regard to the
method that should be employed to attain the end.

Their property was sometimes seized for the commissariat, and Friends were
sometimes arrested on the charge of being unfriendly to the American cause.
In August, 1777; certain papers containing a
set of questions relating to the American Army, and some other notes that
might assist the English, were found on Staten Island,
N.J., by General
Sullivan and sent to Congress. This body resolved at once to arrest persons
who were notoriously inimical to American freedom, and directed that the
records and papers of the Meetings for Sufferings in the several States be
secured and transmitted to Congress. In September,
1777, twenty Quakers of Philadelphia were arrested by the Council of
Pennsylvania on the charge of having given information to the British, and
seventeen of them were hurried down to Winchester,
Va., as prisoners of war.
The original charges seem to have been utterly baseless, and the proceedings
against them were arbitrary and unjust, for they were given no opportunity to
defend themselves; they were refused a hearing, and the writ of
habeas corpus, issued in their behalf by the Chief Justice
of Pennsylvania, was disregarded. Further, they were forced to support
themselves while thus involuntarily removed from their regular occupations,
and the feelings of the community were poisoned against them. This injustice
was all done on the basis of certain papers pretending to come from
“Spanktown Yearly Meeting,” which bear unmistakable evidence of being the
work of one who was wholly ignorant of the phraseology peculiar to Quakers.

The history of the arrest had preceded the prisoners. “The inhabitants in
this part of the country are,” writes the county lieutenant of Frederick, “in
general, much exasperated against the whole society of Quakers. The people
were taught to suppose these people were Tories, and the leaders of the
Quakers, and two more offensive stigmas, in their estimation, could not be
fixed upon men; in short, they determined not to permit them to remain in
Winchester, for fear of their holding a correspondence with the Friends of
the adjoining counties.” He says, further, that this sentiment was
manufactured to keep them from holding such communication, and so strong was
the feeling that on the day after their arrival, about thirty armed men
collected at their lodgings and demanded their immediate removal. The
question was settled for the time by the Quakers agreeing not to leave their
house. But this feeling of fear and hostility soon subsided, the people
became more friendly, and not only allowed them to remain, but administered
to their comforts, granted them the freedom of the surrounding section of
country, and attended their meetings. They were released in
April, 1778.

After the beginning of the Revolution the first matter in Virginia that
related in any way to the Quakers was the first ordinance of Convention of
July, 1775, which exempted “all clergymen and
dissenting ministers” from serving in the militia. But no dissenting minister
could avail himself of this privilege unless he had been “duly licensed by
the general court, or the society to which he belongs.” This law met a part
of the complaint of the Quakers; it recognized their religious standing and
gave their ministers, and other dissenting ministers, the same legal
exemption as had always been granted to the clergymen of the Church of
England. This is the first step in the movement which led up to the sixteenth
section of the Virginia Bill of Rights.

The act of May, 1776, seems to have been a
sort of continuation of the act of 1766. It
required Quakers and Menonists to be enlisted in the militia, but exempted
them from attending musters. The act of May,
1777, went backward. It makes no exception in their favor in regard to
enrollment, mustering or drafting. This was probably an oversight, for the
new law of October, 1777, recruiting the
Virginia regiments, discharges all Quakers and Menonists taken by draft from
personal service, but provides that a number of substitutes, equal to the
number thus discharged, be secured and paid for by a general levy on the
Society as a whole, and this levy was to be collected by distress. There was
the same provision in the laws passed in 1780
and 1781. We see in these laws an evident effort
to recognize the peculiar views of Friends, but the need of their services is
stronger and still keeps them under disabilities.

The law of May, 1782, relieved Quakers from
personal service when drafted, imposing instead a penalty of fourteen pounds,
which might be collected by distress. The law of
October, 1782, relieved them from personal
service, but the county lieutenant was required to appoint a suitable person
“to procure a substitute upon the best terms possible.” This amount was to
be collected from the property of the drafted Quaker; if he could not pay,
from the Society.

Unfortunately we have very imperfect data for determining what the conduct
of Virginia Friends was during this period. But we know that Friends were
exhorted to be faithful and firm in their testimony; that a committee was
appointed to consult with those who were under trial for their faith, to
comfort and encourage them; that, following the lead of Pennsylvania, they
refused in 1779 to pay the taxes for the support
of the war.

North Carolina Quakers seem to have remained pretty faithful to their peace
policy during the whole war, and carried it to the extreme of asking if it
was lawful for them “to pay taxes demanded under the present unsettled state
of affairs.” But it does not appear that they ever went to the extreme of
refusing to pay these taxes or to take the State issues of script; although
Western Quarterly Meeting — the foreign element — declared in
1778 that Friends could not pay the war tax. The
refusal of the Virginia Quakers, when in former wars they had paid their taxes
without inquiring into their destination, at once caused them to play into
the hands of England.

As we have seen in an earlier chapter, John Archdale, the Quaker Governor of
the Carolinas, enforced the military law in South Carolina, but exempted
Friends from its provisions. Under his administration they were exempted from
all military requirements. After the arrival of Sir Nathaniel Johnson in
1702 their fortunes were changed. In
1703 a military law was passed which required
that “all inhabitants” between sixteen and sixty should be armed and drilled.
If persons refused they were subject to a fine of
10s. for the first offense
and 20s. for each
subsequent one. This could be collected by distress. Among the exempts were
“ministers of the gospel,” which term was changed to “the clergy” in
1747, and to “all licensed clergymen, belonging
to any established church in this state,” in
1778. This law underwent various changes and
modifications from time to time, but these were matters of detail, not of
principle. There is no recognition of Quakers in the laws passed during the
Revolution. The penalty for neglect of military duty under the law of
1778 was £500; and Quakers, like others, must
stand the draft. So far as I have been able to learn, there was no deference
at all paid to the peculiar views of the Quakers. I have not found any
mention of the Society whatever in the South Carolina laws.

In the case of Georgia, Quakers report to the North Carolina Yearly Meeting
that under the laws of the State, passed in 1777
and 1778, they were exempted from military
service if properly reported. In 1775 they
complain that they “have been misrepresented in their conduct respecting the
said contest,” and in 1780 complain of being
“oppressed by the violent behavior of the militia of these parts and been
illegally deprived of both Liberty and Property.” An account of the amount
thus lost was to be secured and sent to the monthly meeting, and in the same
year Quakers write to Georgia from New Garden,
N.C., and exhort
them to stand fast in their refusals to comply with requisitions and demands
for war needs. But notwithstanding all exhortations, quite a number of
Quakers in all of these three States enlisted in the American Army, while
others carried aims for personal defense; some were disowned for these
actions.

The North Carolina Quakers seem to have been more uniformly non-combatants.
They had suffered somewhat from military fines in the colonial period. In
the Revolution this became heavier. In 1778 they
paid £1,213:9:2 in military fines, in 1779 it
amounted to £2,152:5:10, and in 1780 to
£841:15:7, “good money, silver dollars at eight shillings”;
1781, to £4,134 and upwards;
1782, £741; 1783,
£718. In 1781 Western Quarterly Meeting reports
£2.148 8s. and £675
18s. as the amounts taken
from them by the American and British armies respectively. But that these
forced drafts on the resources of the Quakers did not impoverish them is
evident from the fact that when Rich Square Monthly Meeting decided in
1781 to raise £40 in gold and silver, one man,
Robert Peelle, agreed to advance the whole amount.

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